Sports

Basketball coach Ken Shaw to enter CHSAA Hall of Fame

Shaw, from Merino, played at NJC and coached at Sterling High School

By Kyle Inman

Journal-Advocate sports writer

Posted:
10/26/2017 09:20:03 PM MDT

Coach Ken Shaw enters the CHSAA Hall of Fame and currently has 727 wins and five state championships on his resume. He coached the Sterling Tigers to an undefeated season and state championship in 1984. (Hyoung Chang / The Denver Post)

Regis Jesuit High School basketball coach Ken Shaw, originally from Merino, will be inducted into the CHSAA Hall of Fame on Jan. 18 at the Radisson Hotel in Denver.

Shaw has been coaching basketball at the high school level in Colorado for 43 years on five teams. In that time, he has amassed 727 wins and five state championships. Teams led by Shaw have competed in the state tournament a record 29 times throughout the years.

Shaw was constantly in the gym as a teenager at Merino High School. He led the Rams to back-to-back undefeated seasons and capped both with state championship wins. At the time of graduation, he was the state's all-time leading scorer. It was in the small town that Shaw first formed a love for the game, one that hasn't dwindled over time.

"I don't know exactly when, but I knew by the time that I was nine or 10 years old that I was a lifer," the coach said. "I knew I was going to search out something to do with basketball; play for as long as you can and then when that's no longer available, coaching was the next best thing."

In high school, Shaw learned the game from another Hall of Fame coach. Ron Vlasin won a total of nine state championships, with seven coming at Merino, including a stretch of five consecutive titles. Shaw said that Vlasin never placed an emphasis on individual achievement, that it was all about team success.

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Shaw went on from Merino to play two years at Northeastern Junior College. He played for coaches Roy Edwards and Lowell Roumph during his time as a member of the Plainsmen basketball team. Shaw excelled at NJC and moved on to finish his collegiate playing career at New Mexico State University.

"It was a great experience for me to play for those coaches," Shaw said of his time in junior college. "The things that I learned from them were also beneficial in my coaching career later on."

After a year as an assistant at his alma mater, Shaw took his first head coaching gig at Yuma High School. He coached the Indians for six years, which included an undefeated season and his first state championship in 1981. The coach then moved on to Sterling High School, where he added a second state championship to his resume in 1984. He led the Tigers had an undefeated season that ended with a win in the championship game.

"I was offered the job at Sterling and I knew of some of the young men coming up," Shaw said. "Even though the job hadn't been good up to that point, I saw some potential there and took a leap of faith. Some of those kids that are now men, I still keep in touch with and they still follow my career. It was a great time in my life and a great experience."

Shaw moved on from Sterling and became the coach at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins. He spent the next 16 seasons at the school and experienced some sustained success, including a trip to the state championship game in 2000, but wasn't able to add to his championship total. He moved to the Denver area to coach Smoky Hill High School, where he spent five years. For the past 11 years, he has continued his coaching career at Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora. At his current job, he guided his team to three consecutive state championships in 2009, '10 and '11.

Over the years, he's had the opportunity to move on to coach at the college level, but never felt the opportunities presented were better than high school. He doesn't look back with regret and feels he's supposed to be exactly where he's at.

Only two coaches in the history of Colorado high school basketball have notched more wins than Shaw. Dick Katte of Denver Christian won 876 and Rudy Carey Jr. of Denver East who has won 764 and counting. Shaw is aware of the record, but sticking around long enough to become the all-time wins leader isn't something of great importance to the coach.

"That isn't what drives me," Shaw said. "Obviously in this business, you chase wins, but there was never a time in my career where I said 'I want to get to this number.' If you are in it for a while and have some success, the wins just pile up."

Shaw hasn't lost the love for coaching and has no plans to stop as every year presents a fresh season and he enjoys being in the gym. He doesn't consider himself a great "x's and o's" guy, but instead feels the effectiveness of his coaching comes from his gym-rat mentality.

"I still enjoy the grunt work and offseason work, the things it takes to build a team and to work with kids on their skills," Shaw said. "I like to be in the gym with my guys to help them learn and improve. I don't have any hobbies, no golf, just coaching basketball."

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